Multicultural Heritage and the Nation State: An Introduction to the Thematic Section

ABSTRACTWith the increasing importance of cultural heritage and its role in contemporary societies, 1 an increasing number of researchers and heritage experts are calling for an understanding of heritage that would more adequately reflect the complex and often contested social processes and engagements with the past and be more sensitive to the needs, visions, negotiations, and experiences of communities andindividuals. These voices are part of an already well-articulated critique of the normativity, one-directionality and past-orientation of the mainstream heritage discourses and institutionalized practices in the Western World (Smith 2006).